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Episcopal Diocese of Northern Indiana Archives

Rev. Henry B. Collier, rector at Hammond, Indiana, 1891-92, and at South Bend.

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Cathedral of St. James, South Bend The Episcopal Church in St. Joseph County has its origin as early as 1840, when visiting clergy conducted occasional services in South Bend. On 7 August 1840, the South Bend Free Press noted, "The Rev. Mr. Manna of the Episcopal Church will preach at the Presbyterian Church in this town on Sunday at 3 o'clock p.m." Bishop George Upfold, the first bishop of Indiana, also made occasional visits.

New impetus for a church began in 1867, when the Rev. Frank M. Gregg, rector of St. Paul's, La Porte, visited during the summer and conducted services on Sunday afternoon at Shively Hall. As winter approached, Bishop Upfold dispatched the Rev. Richard Brass of St. Paul's, Mishawaka, to hold services in the afternoons at the Dutch Reformed Church, a half block north of the present Cathedral. Brass organized St. James Episcopal Church informally on 15 December 1867, appointing a committee to act as a vestry that included Hiram Doolittle as senior warden, George S. Reed as junior warden, and C. W. Guthrie, S. R. King, George W. Matthews, Dwight Deming, and Col. Norman Eddy. The name of St. James was chosen three days later.

Bishop Joseph Talbot, Bishop Coadjutor of Indiana, visited South Bend in the fall of 1867 and again in February 1868. He recruited a Nashotah House graduate, the Rev. George P. Schetky of St. John's Church, Philadelphia, to be the first rector in July 1868. On 6 July, the informal vestry, never properly organized, petitioned Upfold for "approval, consent, and permission" to formally organize the parish of St. James according to diocesan canons. Permission was granted three days later, and the first official vestry was formally seated on 28 July at a meeting in the director's room of the First National Bank.

Despite Schetky's best efforts, the new parish got off to a shaky start, and by October, the vestry voted that it was "inexpedient to continue the effort to maintain an Episcopal Church in this city." Schetky resigned in January 1869, lamenting in a letter his "regret for which language has no expression for the sad results of this reserved attempt to establish and build up the Church in this growing city." The vestry still praised him for his efforts. Later that year, the Rev. Frank Gregg of La Porte returned to South Bend to see what could be done for the fledgling church, and despite the fact that services were poorly attended, he resolved to build a church edifice as a way of firming up its presence. A small women's group had continued to meet in private homes, and the spark for the church had refused to die. Accordingly, the congregation built a small wood frame chapel on Wayne Street east of Lafayette Boulevard for $2,200 under the direction of Gregg, J. Beeson Brownfield, S. R. King, and C. W. Guthrie. Services began under Gregg's direction in September, but he soon departed, and Bishop Talbot sent the Rev. William Richmond as a missionary in 1870 with the understanding that the congregation could not guarantee his salary. Richmond reorganized the parish and had a new vestry elected on 10 April 1871. C. M. Heaton became senior warden and Hiram Doolittle was junior warden. The first Sunday School class was confirmed by Bishop Talbot on 12 May 1871, and the number of communicants increased from 16 to 36. A Sunday School picnic, the first of the parish, was held on 6 July.

Believing that the location of this first church was not suited for its growth, the vestry decided in 1872 to move the building to the northwest corner of Lafayette and Jefferson boulevards after purchasing a lot with a small brick house (used as a rectory) for $5,400. On 20 February 1873, the church reopened and a cabinet-style pipe organ was installed at a cost of $400. In November 1877, Bishop Talbot returned for a visitation, confirming four and ordaining the Rev. Alfred T. Perkins, who became the new rector.

St. James continued to struggle for a number of years, but Bishop David Knickerbacker, Talbot's successor, refused to allow the parish to close. Schuyler Colfax, the Vice President of the United States under Ulysses S. Grant, was a member of the congregation and gave it an important level of support. When he died in 1885, his family presented the church with a processional cross in his honor. In 1891, the Rev. Augustine Prentiss became rector at a salary of $1,300 a year, and he brought much-needed stability. The vestry decided in September 1892 to build a new church, and Corwin B. Van Pelt, the junior warden, was authorized to purchase a lot on the west side of Lafayette Boulevard between Washington and Colfax streets. Mrs. Marian Van Pelt gave much of the money for the construction. The congregation under the leadership of Prentiss's successor, the Rev DeLou Burke, broke ground on 1 June 1894, and the cornerstone was laid just over a month later on St. James Day, 25 July. The South Bend Daily Times reported: "The St. James Episcopal Church congregation on this St. James Day have every reason to be proud and thankful over a result of long years of effort to give that congregation a church structure commensurate with the needs of Episcopalians of South Bend and in every way an architectural ornament of our city."

The new Gothic Revival brick edifice, located at 117 North Lafayette Street, was designed by the architectural firm of Austin & Parker and held its first service at midnight on Christmas Eve, 1894. The following day a Christmas service was held at 10:30, and a dedication service was conducted on 13 January 1895. Burke's successor, the Rev. Francis Milton Banfil, a New Hampshire native, served as rector from 1898 to 1909, and during his tenure the pledge system of envelopes was adopted, the mortgage reduced, and many fine pieces of furniture and art were added to the parish. He left in 1909 after suffering a nervous breakdown.

More improvements followed in the mid-twentieth century. In 1929, the parish completed its first parish hall, known as Cathedral Hall, in the undercroft of the church. The Bishop White Memorial Chapel, later known as the Chapel of the Holy Angels, was remodeled in 1944, as was the baptistery, given in memory of the Rev. Lawrence Cecil Ferguson, who served as rector from 1928 to 1942.

St. James did not become the cathedral of the diocese until 1957 during the episcopate of Bishop Reginald Mallett. When the diocese was founded, Trinity Church Michigan City was designated the cathedral on 25 April 1899. However, the first bishop, John Hazen White, found himself at odds with Trinity's vestry over a number of matters, leading to his decision to move to South Bend in 1912 (when he served as rector of St. James) and split his time there and at his lakeside home at Wawasee. On 4 November 1917, Trinity Michigan City ceased to be the cathedral, and for many years the diocese was effectively without one. Under White's successor, Bishop Campbell Gray, plans were drawn up for a new cathedral in Mishawaka, but due to the onset of the Great Depression, all efforts to raise money for construction were shelved. St. Paul's Mishawaka served as the pro-cathedral during Gray's episcopate, but that designation would survive only a few years into his successor's epsicopate. Bishop Mallett decided to move his residence from Mishawaka to South Bend in 1946, purchasing with a combination of his own and donated funds a house at 2117 East Jefferson Street. Four years later in 1950, he announced that St. Paul's Mishawaka would no longer serve as the pro-cathedral. While he did not affix blame on St. Paul's, Mallett clearly preferred South Bend as his See city.

In 1956 at an Annual Council Meeting in South Bend, Mallett announced that he had accepted the offer of St. James Parish to become the new cathedral. The vestry of St. James had purchased the United Fund Building next door in 1953 and began converting into potential office and educational space for the diocese. It became known as Cathedral House. Mallett was enthroned at the new cathedral on 20 January 1957, and the Very Rev. Robert F. Royster was made the new dean. The St. James Building was purchased in 1962 as a gift from Mrs. Leon B. Slaughter, and the interior was extensively renovated in 1964 after a gift from Mr. and Mrs. Bert K. Patterson.

Since the 1960s, the cathedral has undergone a number of other renovations, including a significant project in 2010 under Dean Brian Grantz. During the 1980s under the episcopate of Francis Gray, an adjacent building was acquired and leased to St. Margaret's House, a day center for women in need in the community. Three deans, the Rev. Robert Bizzaro, the Rev. Frederick Mann, and the Rev. Brian Grantz, all made major contributions to the life of the cathedral. In 2018, during the episcopate of Bishop Douglas Sparks, the old office building was gutted and refurbished to accommodate a newly renovated office to better serve the needs of the growing diocesan staff.

Bibliography:
Robert J. Center, Our Heritage: A History of the First Seventy-five Years of the Diocese of Northern Indiana (South Bend: Diocese of Northern Indiana, 1973).

Anonymous, "A Short History of St. James Cathedral," typescript, undated.

Clergy:

Richard Brass, 1867
George Patterson Schetky, 1868-1869
Frank Mark Gregg, 1870
William Richmond, 1870-1877
Alfred Thomas Perkins, 1877-1879
Francis B. Dunham, 1881-1884
John Plummer Derwent Llwyd, 1885
Frederick Towers, 1885-1887
Frederick Thompson, 1887-1890
Augustine Prentiss, 1891-1892
DeLou Burke, 1893-1896
William Charles Hengen, 1897-1898
Francis Milton Banfil, 1898-1909
Walter Simon Howard, 1910-1912
Bishop John Hazen White, 1912-1920
Robert James Long, 1920-1923
John Maurice Francis, 1923-1928
Lawrence Cecil Ferguson, 1928-1942
Don H. Copeland, 1943-1953
William Paul Barnds, 1953-1956
Robert Frank Royster, 1956-1969
Robert Ayres MacGill, 1970-1975
Robert Bizzaro, 1975-1992
Frederick Earl Mann, 1993-2004
Martin Irving Yabroff, 2004-2007
Brian Glenn Grantz, 2008-

"A Look Back: Cathedral of St. James," South Bend Tribune, 6 April 2015

Parish Register, 1868-1900

Parish Register, 1868-1900 (alternate digitizing)

Parish Register, 1899-1937

Parish Register, 1899-1935 (alternate digitizing)

Parish Register, 1937-1942

Parish Register, Index of Communicants

Parish Register, 1943-1953

Parish Register, Marriages, 1949-1989

Parish Register, Confirmations, 1950-1986

Parish Register, Baptisms, 1953-1989

Parish Register, Marriages Index, 1931-1939

Parish Register, Burials, 1962-1988
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Munster (originally in Hammond)
The earliest efforts to establish an Episcopal Church in Lake County began in 1859, when Bishop George Upfold sent the English-born Rev. Robert Trewartha there to minister to English immigrants who had settled in the area and worked in factories. The effort failed, however, and Trewartha moved on to other missionary fields by the end of 1860.

Decades had passed when a group of eight Episcopalians gathered in downtown Hammond in 1888 for a worship service led by the Rev. Thomas B. Kemp. The English-born missionary, who had been sent to Hammond to plant a church by Bishop David Buel Knickerbacker, stayed in town for several weeks, going door to door with his visitations and baptizing several children. The Rev. Robert C. Wall of Lima, Ohio, a native of Ireland, came to Hammond later in the summer and asked the fledgling congregation to raise $600 for renting a house for worship. Wall led services in the Royal League Hall for two years, and Bishop Knickerbacker arrived to confirm several on his visitation. Most of the members worked in local plants or factories, and the early rectors of the church remained supportive of the organized labor movement.

In 1890, the traditional founding date for the congregation in Hammond, the vestry purchased four lots on Rimbach Street for $1,100. Calling their new church St. Paul's, the vestry and its missionary, the Rev. Stephen Prentiss, contracted with Ketchel Brothers, a local contractor, to construct a modest frame building at a cost of $1,500, which Bishop Knickerbacker dedicated on 22 December of that year. During the years that followed the church grew modestly under a succession of different clergy, including the Rev. George Moore of Momence, Illinois, who also served Delphi and Valparaiso from his home parish. In 1899, under the Rev. Thomas G. McGonigle, St. Paul's applied for and received parish status under the new Diocese of Michigan City. According to a local history, the church in the early 1900s had about 250 members, and the property was worth $20,000. The Rev. Charles Albert Smith was an important early rector who led the repairs and renovations of the building and helped eliminate a debt of $2,100. He served concurrently at the Church of the Good Shepherd in East Chicago.

In 1922, the original church building was moved down Hohman Avenue to 6043 Detroit Street to become what its leaders hoped would be the new parish hall. The vestry engaged architect J. E. O. Pridmore to design a new church of stone and brick at a cost of $75,000. The new rector at that time, the Rev. Peter Langendorff, began a pledge drive, but the necessary funds were never raised. The congregation had enough to construct a basement for the proposed building, but the old church, after its move, served as the nave and chancel of the new one after some remodeling.

Over the years the old church fell into disrepair, and in 1938, again under Langendorff's leadership, the parish hired architect William S. Hutton to draft plans for a major renovation. A light brown brick veneer was added over the building's original wood frame and the main entrance was enlarged, all at a cost of $16,000. The following year, the parish added six new stained glass windows dedicated to saints Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, and James. Once St. Paul's had paid off its debt for these renovations, Bishop Reginald Mallett consecrated the building on 12 March 1950.
The congregation grew in the 1960s under the leadership of the Rev. Eugene Orton Douglass, a talented priest who was much-beloved by the congregation and who remained rector until 1975. By the 1980s, however, changes in Hammond prompted an increasing number of parishioners to move south of town. Space in the old church remained tight, and the vestry made plans for building a new church. Because of this population shift, St. Paul's leaders began a search for new property south of Hammond. Two parishioners, Marianne Kincaid and Cindy St. Leger, approached Helen Bieker of Munster to see if she would sell some of her acreage along Columbia and Park Drive. After initially declining the request, she changed her mind some months later and called to discuss the sale of two acres to St. Paul's. A new brick building was designed to incorporate many of the architectural elements of the Hammond building, while a modern educational and office wing, Bishop Talbot Hall, was included in the design. Parish leaders felt correctly that the move would attract unaffiliated churchgoers in the Munster area.

In May 1988, construction began on the new building at a cost of $750,000. The architectural firm hired for the job promoted a more modern design, which parish leaders rejected in favor of a more traditional design. With its Romanesque style and tumble brick veneer, the church appeared rough during construction, and the Rev. John Blakslee joked that the parish's name should be changed to "St. Ugly Duckling," but he predicted at its completion it would be called "St. Swan." A year later in September 1989 under Blakslee's leadership, the congregation moved into the handsome edifice at 1101 Park Drive, which Bishop Frank Gray dedicated in November that year. The diocese held its annual convention there in 1991. An addition was built and dedicated in 1996, providing three new classrooms and an adult day care center. After Blakslee moved to St. Stephen's, Hobart, St. Paul's joined other parishes in the Calumet area that had a difficult time attracting clergy. Through the efforts of Bishop Little, St. Paul's became a charter member of the Calumet Episcopal Ministry Project (CEMP) in 2010, agreeing to share clergy with other churches in the partnership.

Margaret C. Dust, People of the Place of Fire: St. Paul Episcopal Church, a Century of Progress, Hammond, Indiana (Merrillville, Indiana: Cornelius House, 1988).

Clergy:

Thomas Byron Kemp, 1888
Robert Carter Wall, 1888-1890
Stephen Elliott Prentiss, 1890
Thomas Dowell Phillipps, 1891
Henry Borradaile Collier, 1891-1892
Austen Francis Morgan, 1893
Thomas George McGonigle, 1894
Edward Saunders, 1894-1895
George Moore, 1897-1898
Josiah Otis Ward, 1898
Thomas George McGonigle, 1899-1900
Charles Albert Smith, 1900-1913
William John Hawthorne, 1913-1920
Peter Langendorff, 1921-1945
J. Willard Yoder, 1945-1948
William Karl Rehfeld, 1948-1954
Eugene Orton Douglass, 1954-1975
John Blakslee, 1975-1996
Steven Schuneman, 1997-2000
Bennett Jones, 2000-2010
Michael Dwyer, 2010-2018 (CEMP)
Michelle I. Walker, 2014-2020 (CEMP)
Kristine Graunke, 2015-2020 (CEMP)
Pamela Thiede, 2020- (CEMP)
Cynthia Moore, 2020-2021 (CEMP)
Charles Strietelmeier, 2023- (CEMP)

Adapted from St. Paul's website: http://www.calumetepiscopal.org/st-paul/about.php

Margaret C. Dust, People of the Place of Fire: St. Paul Episcopal Church, Hammond, Indiana, 1988 (Dyer, Indiana: Margaret Dust, 1988).
Church of the Good Shepherd, East Chicago, Indiana
The first Episcopal services in East Chicago were held on 18 November 1888 by the Irish-born Rev. Robert C. Wall, who preached and opened a Sunday school. The mission of Good Shepherd was formed in 1892 out of that congregation which had been St. Mary's, New Carlisle. East Chicago was then a tangle of competing and divergent ethnic groups, including Hungarians, Romanians, Slovaks, Poles, Canadians, Welsh, African Americans, and Hispanics. Bishop White noted in his annual address of 1903 that he had placed the Rev. Vincent C. Lacey at Indiana Harbor, and through his efforts, "a number of devout church families were found at East Chicago, lying between Indiana Harbor and Hammond, and a most interesting work begun there." In 1907, the bishop formally organized Good Shepherd as a diocesan mission after receiving a petition from a number of residents. The vicar at the time, the Rev. Charles Albert Smith, also had charge of St. Paul's in Hammond and St. Alban's, Indiana Harbor.

The congregation was comprised mostly of Welsh and Canadians who had arrived in East Chicago to work in the steel mills. Meeting initially in a local Odd Fellows hall, the mission urged the diocese, through the efforts of the Rev. Thomas Hines, to arrange for the former St. Mary's edifice at New Carlisle, a small frame structure, to be moved to East Chicago in 1914. The building was partly disassembled and moved by rail car, together with suitcases full of Books of Common Prayer, to a location at 4525 Baring Avenue for $3,600. Money for the move had come from the sale of the New Carlisle property. In January 1915, Bishop White reported attending the first service in the rebuilt church, but he later said in September that it was still being framed. He was likely referring to the resurfacing of the wood frame church in brick, giving it a much different appearance. Bishop White does not appear to have consecrated the new building, having deemed the previous consecration in 1893 by Bishop Knickerbacker sufficient. In 1920, under Hines's leadership, Good Shepherd became a parish but was still not fully self-supporting. Hines died at his post in 1925, and the church later reverted to mission status.

After World War II in 1945, after studying the many years of financial hardship of Good Shepherd, Bishop Mallett attempted to persuade the congregations of Good Shepherd and St. Alban the Martyr at Indiana Harbor to merge. One suggestion was that the Indiana Harbor building be retained and shared with East Chicago, while another was to sell both churches and build a new one at a different site. Mallett asked Dom Leo Patterson, a Benedictine monk based in Valparaiso, to take charge of St. Alban's, but it did not survive after World War II. St. Luke's Whiting, another area church that never had its own building, folded into Good Shepherd

After years of mission status, Good Shepherd was admitted again as a parish under Bishop Mallett in 1956, the first formal new parish added to the diocese since 1908. A 1958 article described the parish's industrial location with its ever-present soot and smoke. Nine railroads carried off steel to other parts of the country, and one out of four people were foreign-born. Membership in the church at that time numbered 233.

For many years Good Shepherd was served by the Rev. Canon C. Richard Phelps, who labored to reach out to the poor of the surrounding community. He celebrated daily Mass, which became the "backbone" of the parish, as well as the full rite of Holy Week. Seven stained glass windows gave witness to the seven sacraments.

In the 1980s East Chicago had the highest population density of any town in the state. Life was regulated by shifts in the steel mills. However, by the 1990s, Good Shepherd was located in the most economically-challenged part of the diocese, where it remained a beacon. In 2014, Phelps reported drawing 100 visitors on Sunday, most of them poor in the area who stayed for lunch. The rectory attached to the church was renamed the "mission house," where lunches were served and other care given. Good Shepherd received donations from other churches, including food and clothing. The recipients helped with the meal preparation. When Father Phelps retired, the parish closed its doors in 2018. The records, as well as those of St. Luke's Whiting, are now in the diocesan archives and have been digitized.

Open Doors Save a Parish

Clergy:

Robert Carter Wall, 1888
Henry Borradaile Collier, 1892
George Moore, 1896-1897
Vincent Corbett Lacey, 1903
Charles Albert Smith, 1901-1909
Thomas Hines, 1914-1925
Frederick Murray Clayton, 1925-1927
William Edward Hoffenbacher, 1927
Alexander Eberhardt Pflaum, 1929-1936
William Edward Hoffenbacher, 1936-1941
John Elliott Kuhne, 1941-1945
Gail Colyer Brittain, 1946-1952
Horace Lytton Varian, 1952-1954
Willis Jay Handsbury, 1954-1960
Charles J. Hauling Sutton, 1960-1961
William E. Smith, 1961-1962
Donald Lee Bell, 1963-1967
Michael Edward Grant, 1967-1975
Cecil Richard Phelps, 1980-2017

Parish Register, 1892-1940

Parish Register, 1941-1971

Parish Register, 1971-2013
Rev. Henry Borradaile Collier The Rev. Henry Borradaile Collier was born in Betchworth, Surrey, England, on 6 May 1860, the son of William and Henriette Collier. He moved to the Winnipeg, Manitoba was ordained a deacon in 1888 by the bishop of Saskatchewan. He moved to Wisconsin, serving missions at Red Deer and Ashland, then came to Indiana, where Bishop Knickerbacker ordained him a priest. Knickerbackr assigned him to St. Paul's Mission in Hammond, which had been newly organized. He may have spent time also at St James, South Bend, where his photo survives. By 1892 he left Indiana for Sprague, Washington, serving a mission there until 1893. He then went to San Francisco, serving the Church of the Advent. He married there Mary Alice McRoberts. He died in Colna, California, on 25 September 1910, and is buried with his wife in Cypress Lawn Memorial Park.